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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report

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Speaker 1: for Friday, the twenty seventh of February twenty twenty six.

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Speaker 1: I'm Michael Thompson, and every afternoon we've got the five

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Speaker 1: stories that happened today that you need to know about.

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Speaker 1: Let's go with story number one. It is about markets.

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Speaker 1: The S and PA sex two hundred rows zero point

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Speaker 1: three percent today to nine thousand, one hundred and ninety

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Speaker 1: nine points, a fresh record close for the third straight day.

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Speaker 1: The market is finishing the month up three point seven percent.

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Speaker 1: That's its strongest gain in ten months and comes off

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Speaker 1: the back of a very volatile reporting season. The best

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Speaker 1: performer today was Block, the owner of after Pay. We'll

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Speaker 1: have a bit more on that one a little bit

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Speaker 1: later on, but it saw twenty eight percent today on

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Speaker 1: a jump in profit and some huge job cuts. Consumer

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Speaker 1: staples lagged. Colds fell more than seven percent after a

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Speaker 1: softer sales growth, disappointed investors. Woollies was off about one

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Speaker 1: percent after its best one day jump yesterday thirty years

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Speaker 1: a soft day two for the banks, but materials well

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Speaker 1: and truly outperformed, with Linus Rare Earth jumping more than

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Speaker 1: ten percent. I LUKA resources up more than nine percent.

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Speaker 1: This is all on renewed optimism around rare earths. The

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Speaker 1: Financial Review reports that that optimism is largely because of

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Speaker 1: a US company called MP Materials signing a deal with

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Speaker 1: an unidentified an unidentified auto maker. That's a mouthful, but

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Speaker 1: the supply contract is described as enormous. Now, if that's

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Speaker 1: not enough to stoke a bit of optimism, I don't

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Speaker 1: know what is. Story number two. The Federal Liberal Party

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Speaker 1: will not release the official review into the coalition's twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty five election defeat, despite earlier expectations that at least

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Speaker 1: the recommendations might be made public. The review, which was

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Speaker 1: conducted by Nick Minchin and Prue Goward, reportedly criticized campaign

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Speaker 1: strategy and key policy decisions. Former leader Peter Dutton had

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Speaker 1: campaigned for it not to be released. The coalition suffered

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Speaker 1: its worst result, obviously by vote share, at the May

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Speaker 1: election last year, reduced to just forty three Lower House

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Speaker 1: seats while Labor secured ninety four. It is a normal

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Speaker 1: part of the process to conduct a review of what

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Speaker 1: went wrong, but the party said today that it accepted

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Speaker 1: the decisive defeat and would focus now on rebuilding and

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Speaker 1: restoring voter trust rather than publishing the review. The decision

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Speaker 1: comes on the same day as former Opposition leader Susan

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Speaker 1: Lee formally resigned from Parliament, ending a twenty five year career,

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Speaker 1: triggering a by election now in her regional New South

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Speaker 1: Wales seat of Farrer. In a statement, Lee somewhat pointedly

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Speaker 1: noted that policy decisions adopted by her successor, Angus Taylor

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Speaker 1: did in fact mirror the directions that she was setting

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Speaker 1: herself during her nine months as leader. Story number three,

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Speaker 1: back to Market to was the last official day of

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Speaker 1: earning season and a few companies still reporting results today.

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Speaker 1: I mentioned Colds before, but Harvey normal and fell nine

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Speaker 1: percent after its local sales came in below expectations, despite

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Speaker 1: a stronger showing from its international stores. TPG Telecom was

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Speaker 1: off almost three percent. Competition is heating up in the

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Speaker 1: mobile market, but the telco reported a return to profit

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Speaker 1: almost fifty three million dollars for the half year. The

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Speaker 1: property exchange platform PEXA was up nearly five percent after

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Speaker 1: delivering a profit that far exceeded expectations, and Virgin Australia

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Speaker 1: was off slightly, just zero point three percent down today

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Speaker 1: after a higher tax expense saw statutory profit drop to

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Speaker 1: three hundred and forty one million dollars and one more company.

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Speaker 1: It didn't report results today, but it did resume trading.

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Speaker 1: Car parts retailer Bapcorp. Not a great day. It had

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Speaker 1: suspended trading for a capital raising, and when it resumed

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Speaker 1: it fell almost fifty percent today. Ouch story number four.

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Speaker 1: The Corporate Regulator has launched federal court action against the

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Speaker 1: owner of insurer Budget Direct, alleging the overcharged up to

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Speaker 1: thirty two nine thousand customers by three point three million

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Speaker 1: dollars over four years. The regulator claims that the insurer

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Speaker 1: promoted discounts of up to thirty percent on car, home

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Speaker 1: and motorbike policies, but removed them when customers made changes

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Speaker 1: like updating their address or replacing a vehicle. ACIK alleges

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Speaker 1: that the company was aware of the issue since twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 1: but failed to fix it or inform customers. Budget Direct

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Speaker 1: parent company Auto in General, though, said that the issue

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Speaker 1: was inadvertent and that it was actually self reported, and

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Speaker 1: that it has refunded more than three point eight million

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Speaker 1: dollars including interest, and invested millions more in system and

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Speaker 1: compliance improvements. ACIK is still seeking penalties despite those refunds,

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Speaker 1: continuing a broader crackdown on misleading insurance pricing practices that

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Speaker 1: have seen action taken against other major insurers in recent years.

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Speaker 1: And finally, story number five after pay owner Block I

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Speaker 1: mentioned this earlier, will cut four thousand jobs, so that's

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Speaker 1: about forty percent of its workforce, with founder Jack Dorsey

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Speaker 1: saying that AI tools have fundamentally changed how companies are

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Speaker 1: built and run. The restructure is expected to cost between

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Speaker 1: four hundred and fifty million and five hundred million US

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Speaker 1: dollars at Dorsey said that recent advances in AI models

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Speaker 1: have marked a turning point, and he is predicting that

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Speaker 1: most companies will make similar structural changes within a year.

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Speaker 1: He said intelligence tools are now capable of being applied

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Speaker 1: to nearly every part of his business. The announcement came

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Speaker 1: as block reported a twenty four percent rise in quarterly

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Speaker 1: gross profit, and as I mentioned, block shares surged in

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Speaker 1: after hours training in the US and locally here on

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Speaker 1: the ASEX as well. That's it for the afternoon report

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Speaker 1: for Friday, the twenty seventh of February. Make sure you're

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Speaker 1: following the podcast and head along to Fear and Greed

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Speaker 1: dot com dot au to sign up for our free

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Speaker 1: daily newsletter. That's a linking Today Show notes as well.

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Speaker 1: I'm Michael Thompson. Enjoy your evening,